Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.

bertie 83 wrote:Feed him little and often if you have to, it's important he keeps his strength up

yea thats what i'm trying so he keeps his strength he te 3x today 1 big 2 liittle 1 was a piece of shrimp soaked in garlic .i now know why mbu needs massive filtration and massive wc when he eats its like a grinder stuff comes flying out his gills like one of those tree grinders lol but i'm serious ,my fahaka is not nearly close to that and he's messy but mbu is a grinding machine

Are you adding the ip meds to his food yet? You wanna get those inside him too. If he is swimming and eating he still has plenty of fight left in him. However you want to get rid of the infestations ASAP

bertie 83 wrote:Are you adding the ip meds to his food yet? You wanna get those inside him too. If he is swimming and eating he still has plenty of fight left in him. However you want to get rid of the infestations ASAP

Well i was going too then i decided to wait for the ick to be completly gone,... but i tried a little piece of shrimp soaked in garlic with a piece of fizz tab in it he ate it then blew it out so not sure if it did any good, so rather than anymore stress rite this moment while he still eating im gonna hold off...The spots are gone except 1 on his eye so i only have a week or so of treatment left , then im gonna go with ip treatment but his poop has color now but still looks like strings of beads and big beads?

suvattii2012 wrote:How is it going with your mbu Gar?You should see the mess come out of my arrowheads gills when he eats lol. He sometimes just eats the full thing with no mess which is nice.

so far good i think hes gonna make it im so happy i couldnt even begin to tell u and thanks for asking!Yea he is excatly the same last few feedings he didnt make a mess weird lol

Pufferpunk wrote:Selling him to a shop does not give you the option to get him into a proper environment.

Why do you think that was my plan ?IDK if you recieved my reply but this is charlie .

The mbu seems to be ok but maybe he has ip i'm not sure he's eating fine but has a chain of sausage like waste so .I was thinking stress due to all of his problems or ip's but hes eating good and is fat and round